Taike rock and its discontent
2009; Routledge; Volume: 10; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14649370903166408
ISSN1469-8447
Autores Tópico(s)Asian Culture and Media Studies
ResumoAbstract Abstract As popular music is an important means of expression and representation, it is important to consider the social forces that give rise to it and the various extents of these influences. This paper explores generic and discursive practices that have been labelled 'taike rock' in Taiwan. In recent years, 'taike rock', a generic term brought into use by music industry insiders, journalists and entertainment media, has triggered animated debate. The disputed term tai‐ke, literally means 'Taiwanese guest,' but in its earliest and original form, as used by those post‐1949 mainland Chinese arriving in Taiwan with the KMT regime, the term connoted ethnic discrimination towards native Taiwanese and was used specifically to articulate perceptions of their unsophisticated outlook and behaviour. Recently, however, the commercial forces of the music industry have re‐appropriated the term tai‐ke to create 'taike rock', thereby ascribing new meanings and triggering controversy. In this paper, the phenomenon of taike rock is explored in order to discover the extent to which its newly ascribed meaning renders obsolete the old political and cultural antagonisms between native Taiwanese and 'Mainlanders' (i.e. post‐1949 immigrants from the Chinese mainland), especially as the trend attracts commercial and media attention. In the process of this examination, the taike phenomenon is then considered to be musically embodied in taike rock, the generic practice of which has given rise to its contested nature. Next, the discursive and performative aspects of taike rock are finally evaluated by looking at a general protest against the corporation Neutron Innovation's attempt to trademark the term 'tai‐ke'. In discussing this anti‐trademark campaign, this paper concludes by bringing up critical issues of cultural identity and creativity in popular music in the face of corporate monopolisation of intellectual property rights. Keywords: Taike rock Taiwan's ethnic politicsmusic genre and performanceintellectual property Acknowledgements This research is supported by a grant from Fu‐Jen Catholic University (9991B04/ 209531040170). Many thanks go to Chua Beng Huat and Shin Hyunjoon for organising the 'Workshop on Asian Pop Music in Transition: New Economy, New Subjectivity, and Inter‐Asian Perspective' in March, 2007, through the Asia Research Institute, NUS, Singapore. The first version of this paper was submitted to that workshop, and it is upon that version which this present version takes its shape. Notes 1. Whether to call those Chinese who came to Taiwan with the KMT armies Mainlander Chinese or Mainlander Taiwanese is subject to political controversy and specific historical contexts. Neither English term offers what could be considered an adequate translation of the more precise meanings engendered by their Chinese equivalents, waishengren and waisheng taiwanren, respectively. Throughout this paper, the two English terms are used interchangeably to the extent to which they reveal the ethnic tension and political situation on the island. 2. See Edward Yang's internationally acclaimed film, A Brighter Summer Day (1991); Ju Tien‐hsin's novel, Thinking of My Buddies in Military‐Dependent Villages (1992 Ju, Tien‐hsin. 1992. Thinking of My Buddies in Military‐Dependent Villages , Taipei: Rye Field Publications . [Google Scholar]); Ho Tunghung's PhD dissertation about Anglophone music scenes in the 1960s in Taipei (Ho 2003 Ho, Tunghung. 2003. 'The social formation of mandarin popular music industry in Taiwan', UK: Sociology Department of Lancaster University. PhD dissertation [Google Scholar]). 3. For an excellent deployment of Laclau's and Mouffe's concept in exploring the naming battle within taike culture, see Wang Mai‐jen (2006 Wang, Mai‐jen. 2006. 'What does "taike fad" mean culturally: the social imaginary and identity construction of "taike culture'" , Taipei, , Taiwan: National Chengchi University. Master thesis [Google Scholar]). 4. During my personal conversations with second generation Mainlanders, they recalled that when they used to call Taiwanese lads 'taike', the expression also sometimes signified a personal lack and expressed an ambivalent attitude that mixed scorn and jealousy towards Taiwanese lads. 5. In Jason Toynbee's study of Bob Marley, Raymond Williams's concept of the structure of feeling is used to designate the psycho‐semiotic level of Jamaica's socio‐historical reality, under which reggae music, especially Bob Marley and the Wailers, progresses politically (Toynbee 2007 Toynbee, Jason. 2007. Bob Marley: Herald of a Postcolonial World?, Cambridge: Polity. [Google Scholar]: 74). 6. Actually, this 'taike fad' consisted of various forms of popular culture, including 'betel nut beauties', who dress sexily and sell betel nuts from roadside stalls to motorists, and 'spicy girls' who sing karaoke in vernacular ceremonies ranging from celebratory occasions to funerals. But it was the taike media craze that took them out of context and reinvented them as the 'taike fad', a fad of sensationalism that existed in and through the media. 7. Rave etiquette developed into different sub‐styles as the genre of dance music developed to encompass different demographic markets. Practising the wrong etiquette in the wrong scene was often ridiculed in dance music magazines in the UK. 8. The social translation of tackiness into beauty requires an extensive examination of Taiwan's vernacular consumer culture. This needs further research. 9. The fact that the same promotion company, Neutron Innovation, organised both the Taike Rock Festival and Simple Life does not present a problem. What is at issue here is that in these two festivals based on ostensibly different ideals – one was presented as glamorous and tacky while the other claimed an ethos that was supposed to be natural, predominantly acoustic and about getting back to basics – many of the headliners overlapped. 10. 'It's better to burn out than it is to fade away', as Neil Young once sang. Sadly, I do not see taike rock carrying any trace of this ethos. 11. Academic interest in the taike fad has produced several master dissertations, for instance, Chang C. (2005 Chang, Chieh‐mao. 2005. "'To see industrial design from subculture: custom‐made vehicle in taike culture'". Taipei, , Taiwan: Shih Chien University. Master thesis [Google Scholar]), Chen (2005 Chen, Kuang‐zhu. 2005. "'Taike—The Reproduction of Class and The Possibility of Hegemonic Struggle in Taiwan' ". Taipei, , Taiwan: Taiwan Normal University . Master thesis [Google Scholar]), Lai (2006 Lai, Yi‐Ting. 2006. 'The rhetorical vision of taike as constructed in media: an analysis of the "Generation" show' , Taipei, , Taiwan: Fu‐Jen University. Master thesis [Google Scholar]), Lin (2005 Lin, Chen‐ting. 2005. '(G)localization of the sensory experience and its cultural expressions in Taiwan: Taipei101 and Shining 3 Girls', Hsinchu, , Taiwan: National Chiao Tung University. Master thesis [Google Scholar]), Wang (2006 Wang, Mai‐jen. 2006. 'What does "taike fad" mean culturally: the social imaginary and identity construction of "taike culture'" , Taipei, , Taiwan: National Chengchi University. Master thesis [Google Scholar]). 12. Here Joytopper is punning with Chinese characters and pronunciations. New Yorker is translated as 'niu‐yue‐ke', Pizza Hut as 'bi‐sheng‐ke'. 13. For Chang, superficiality is a word that connotes active rather than passive meanings. For years, she has devoted herself to deconstructing mind/body, internal/external, reason/affect binaries while prioritising the latter in the semiotic, discursive framework she uses to explore the practices of popular culture. 14. Bhaskar, in his critical realist philosophy of science, identifies an epistemic fallacy, saying, 'statements about being can always be transposed into statements about our knowledge of being' (Bhaskar 1997 Bhaskar, Roy. 1997[1975]. A Realist Theory of Science, London: Verso. [Google Scholar] [1975]: 16). Sayer makes a strong critique of social constructivism on this account (Sayer 2000 Sayer, Andrew. 2000. Realism and Social Science, London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 15. Chang has expanded her elaboration to include tai‐mei (the female counterpart tai‐ke) and hip hoppers. However, these do not concern us here. 16. Some compensation was made for this ignorance when, in the 2006 Golden Melody Awards, Wu Bai, appearing as an award presenter for the best band award, read the name of Lo Tsui Kweh, one of the nominees, out loud three times, explaining that they were the 'real' taike! 17. Unlike Wu Bai, who usually articulates masculinity with a bit of femininity, other mainstream taike rock musicians, such as MC Hotdog and Zhang Zhen‐yue, are more explicit in their masculinity. Their lyrics and performances boldly imitate the misogyny prevailing in hip hop with sexy female dancers on stage. 18. Within the context of British music, contrasts between indie and mainstream rock music regarding the performativity of sexuality have emphasised and advocated the former for its tradition of androgynous blending (Fonarow 2006 Fonarow, Wendy. 2006. Empire of Dirt: The Aesthetics and Rituals of British Indie Music, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. [Google Scholar]). Yet, as Leonard shows in her empirical study, this perception of 'indie [as] a less masculinist musical tradition' is questionable when various situations involving gender issues in genre practice are actually examined (Leonard 2007 Leonard, Marion. 2007. Gender in the Music Industry: Rock, Discourse and Girl Power, London: Ashgate. [Google Scholar]: 45). 19. The details of this controversy can be seen at the website: http://www.bigsound.org/tkrock. 20. References to these issues are abundant and constantly increasing, so we only list some that are more recent and related to popular music. See McLeod (2005 McLeod, Kembrew. 2005. Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity, New York: Doubleday. [Google Scholar]), Frith and Marshall (2004 Frith, Simon and Marshall, Lee, eds. 2004. Music and Copyright , 2nd edn, London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Vaidhyanthan (2004 Vaidhyanthan, Siva. 2004. The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System, New York: Basic Books. [Google Scholar]), Cultural Studies (2006 2006. Special issue on the politics of intellectual properties. Cultural Studies, 20(issue): 2–3. [Google Scholar]), Social and Legal Studies (2006 Social and Legal Studies. 2006. Issue on copyright, vol. 15, issue1 [Google Scholar]). 21. Lury argues that branding, under the Trade Mark Act, is acknowledged as 'a badge of origin' that enables corporations to monopolise the use of their products (Lury 2005 Lury, Celia. 2005. "'The objectivity of the brand'". In The Technological Economy, Edited by: Barry, Andrew and Slater, Don. 183–200. London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]: 188). 22. The battle against Neutron Innovation finally resulted in victory. The IPO ruled that 'taike' as a commercial logo violated certain clauses of the Trade Mark Act, and its registry was eventually recalled in early 2008.
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